Major (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese sports manga series written and illustrated by Takuya Mitsuda.

Gorō's father, Shigeharu Honda, is a baseball pitcher bouncing between the major and minor league teams of the NPB.

The father and son are struck a cruel blow when an arm injury prevents Honda from continuing his baseball career as a pitcher.

For his son's sake, Honda takes his best friend's advice, revives his batting instincts, and successfully transforms into a slugger.

Right when Honda establishes himself in a major league team, the Yokohama Marine Stars, the Tokyo Giants sign a contract with the American MLB player Joe Gibson, famous for his huge physical build and hard fastballs.

The umpire immediately calls Gibson off the mound, though Honda quickly gets back onto his feet and continues with the game.

The next morning, Honda dies due to internal bleeding in his skull, leaving his heartbroken son and fiancé in mourning.

However, the local kids are mostly interested in soccer, and Gorō has to get his new school friends to join him to have enough members to keep the baseball team from being dismantled.

Gorō finds himself torn; following in his father's footsteps would mean abandoning the friends he asked to join the Mifune Dolphins.

While it turns out to just be a gastric ulcer, it makes Gorō realize that the living people in his life are much more important than the dead ones.

He offers Gorō an all-expenses-paid invitation to travel to America and watch the MLB All-Star game, where Gibson will be the starting pitcher for the National League.

Back in Japan, with renewed determination, Gorō leads the Mifune Dolphins through various trials and practice matches to defeat Yokohama Little, the best team in the region.

In the end, the Dolphins do defeat Yokohama Little, but Gorō is injured in the process, making him unable to play for a few months.

Immediately after they graduate middle school, Gorō and Toshiya are sent to Dream Island, where they undergo six months of hard training and make some new friends.

She insists that Gorō be accountable for his actions and accept the responsibility to pay the application fee at any school that he chooses to enroll.

After a close game that goes into extra innings, Kaido wins and moves on to Koshien, while Gorō collapses from exhaustion.

Despite losing the match against Kaido, Gorō attracted the eyes of many scouts during his time with the Seishuu High School team, including some from the Yokohama Marine Stars and the Tokyo Warriors.

Meanwhile, Gorō learns from Toshi that there is going to be a Baseball World Cup the following year hosted in America, and for the first time, Major League players will be allowed to compete in it.

Due to Gorō's impressive performance in the practice match between Rookies and the All-Star Japan team, he is selected as a replacement pitcher starting the second round of preliminaries.

The day before the semi-finals match against Cuba, Toshiya runs into his sister, and the traumatic memories of being abandoned by his parents seven years prior are rekindled.

Toshiya makes several excellent plays against Cuba's aggressive offense in the semi-finals, and Gorō gets the win as the closer.

However, with the players mostly in an "exhibition game" mentality, Gibson takes the mound in the 8th inning of the USA vs. Venezuela semi-finals, risking his life to raise the spirits of his teammates.

Gibson reveals to Gorō that, in a chance meeting with Momoko 10 years prior, he asked her why she had not accepted any monetary compensation from him.

After the finals, Gorō loses his desire to play baseball and returns to Japan instead of going to Florida for spring training.

A flash-forward eight years shows Gorō being brought out to close the last game of the World Series, where the Hornets face off against the Raiders.

Following the events of Season 6, the Major OVA finds Gorō, after a splendid fourteen-year career, forced to retire from the Hornets.

He rejects some offers of coaching positions and decides to return to Japan to continue playing baseball as a hitter and fielder.

[14] In 2005, sporting goods manufacturer Mizuno entered into a one-year agreement with Shogakukan to have their company logo appear in the baseball equipment used by Goro Shigeno and other characters in the manga series.

[15] An article from The Boston Globe credits the manga series for helping increase the popularity of the gyroball pitch.

[16] Following Japan's victory against the United States in the 2023 World Baseball Classic final, Matsuda created a commemorative illustration featuring Goro alongside Shohei Ohtani that was published in Sports Nippon.